Sexually assaulted Alabama prison inmates fear reporting abuse, knowing they will be punished for what prison officials say is deliberately creating a safety hazard.

Family members of inmates are extorted by other inmates who threaten their imprisoned loved ones -- unless the family pays a prisoner’s drug debt.

Understaffed prisons are overflowing with inmates who are armed with makeshift weapons and will kill officers over food and will kill fellow inmates for any number of reasons.

Inmates are drugged, raped and tortured for days at a time, sometimes in retaliation for reporting sexual abuse.

These are the findings of a federal investigation of Alabama prisons, released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Here are some of the more disturbing findings:

An inmate texted a woman, saying he would rape her son, also an inmate, and chop him into pieces unless she paid his $800 drug debt. The mother begged for time to get the money. “I tried to work with you and him,” he replied. “mom you did it to him."

“Debt, particularly drug debt, can result in sexual abuse. This was a common point raised by the prisoners we interviewed on site. Submission to sexual abuse under the threat of violence resulting from the drug trade does not indicate consent,” the report stated.

Inmates who reported sexual abuse were "disciplined for intentionally creating a security/safety/health hazard because he admitted to the drug debt.”

After a Kilby inmate died in 2018, officials classified his death as natural although he was stabbed in the head, back and arm and suffered a fractured skull.

“There are numerous instances where ADOC incident reports classified deaths as due to “natural” causes when, in actuality, the deaths were likely caused by prisoner-on-prisoner violence,” the report states.

“ADOC has acknowledged that it does not maintain a centralized repository for all autopsies that have been performed. And, even apart from maintaining autopsies and tracking deaths, ADOC has no other mechanism in place to identify patterns in causes of death.”

Murder, as well as rape and torture, are very real threats for Alabama prison inmates, investigators found. The assaults are often committed by inmates with deadly, handmade weapons.

"Prisoners at Bibb said that “everyone” has knives, and prisoners need a weapon to stay alive. One prisoner stated that “Bibb is a place where you have to fight the day you arrive or you’ll be a bitch, so you get a knife.” Another recounted being warned by officers when he arrived at Bibb that he would need a knife for protection....At facilities we visited, shift commanders estimated that anywhere from 50-75% of prisoners were armed with some sort of weapon.”

Inmates high on drugs often attack fellow inmates. Sometimes inmates are raped after agreeing to take drugs and unexpectedly losing consciousness.

The violence takes many forms.

An inmate, known to be a gang member, was strangled in St. Clair in 2016 and had the number “1636” carved into his rib-cage.

“The number 1636 is a gang-related reference to “cardinal sin,” indicating that the person is a traitor or snitch. Less than two weeks before his death, the victim had been assaulted over a debt. Following that assault, the victim was placed in segregation for his protection. He was released from segregation hours before he was killed.”

Here is complete coverage of Alabama’s prison crisis

“In March 2018, a correctional lieutenant “received information” that a prisoner was “being tortured” in a dormitory at Ventress. The lieutenant located the prisoner and escorted him to the Health Care Unit. The prisoner reported that he was “tied up, burned, and tortured for two days and that a broom handle was stuck up his rectum.” The prisoner stated that the torture was in retaliation for his documented report of a prior sexual assault.”

It was impossible to capture a “complete picture” of sexual abuse in prisons, the report states, because inmates do not report it out of “fear of retaliation, shame” or a belief nothing will be done.

“Moreover, we did not identify any incidents where a correctional officer or other staff member observed or intervened to stop a sexual assault in progress—leading us to conclude officers are either failing to report abuse or failing to monitor prisoners. Because correctional officers are not observing the incidents of sexual abuse, if the victim or a witness does not report it, the abuse will not be recorded or addressed.”

Prison employees also face constant danger, even as they often contribute to problems in the prisons, according to the report.

“Walking out of these gates, knowing you’re still alive, that’s a successful day,” a Donaldson officer told the D.O.J.

“Since 2017, correctional officers have been stabbed, punched, kicked, threatened with broken broomsticks or knives, and had their heads stomped on...At the same time, dozens of ADOC correctional officers have been arrested in the past two years for crimes related to drug trafficking and other misconduct within Alabama’s prisons.”

In 2016, about a month before the federal government notified Alabama of the investigation, an officer working alone in Donaldson’s dining hall was stabbed in the head and killed after refusing to let an inmate get a second tray of food.

Conditions inside Alabama prisons have deteriorated for years and Alabama does not care, the report concluded.

“Alabama prisoners endure an extraordinarily high rate of violence at the hands of other prisoners. Based on the latest data available from the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, Alabama’s prisons have the highest homicide rate in the country,” the report states.

“In 2014, the national average homicide rate in prisons was seven homicides per 100,000 prisoners. During fiscal year 2017, ADOC publicly reported nine homicides in its men’s prisons, which house about 16,000 prisoners (a rate of homicide of 56 per 100,000 prisoners). This is approximately eight times the 2014 national rate.”

“Alabama is deliberately indifferent to that harm or serious risk of harm and it has failed to correct known systemic deficiencies that contribute to the violence.”